Free To Be You And Me reconsidered.
I haven’t seen Free To Be You and Me since it was new, so it’s been…geez 30+ years. I’d remembered some of the music and when I saw a video tape of it for sale, I snatched it up thinking I’d gotten a lost classic to show to my neice.
Um…despite the fact that I agree with a lot of the propaganda in it, and that it has some good moments, lots of it is just…bad. There’s a reason it hasn’t been rebroadcast much.
I’m quite aware of the context of the time and how new “women’s lib” was–but I’m also judging it on “How will it play now, 35 years later to a kid who didn’t grow up in the era?” context.
Synopsis
It opens with a catchy (well…for a particular value of “catchy”–I like the song Georgie Girl–if you do, you’ll find the opening tune catchy) tune about how we’re all free to be ourselves. Good enough–kids in BAD '70s fashions ride a merry-go-round until they become animated and their horses jump off the merry-go-round.
Next sequence is a sort of…kind of proto-Cabbage Patch Kid muppets, only odder-looking–they kinda look like muppet versions of Stewie from Family Guy. Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks do a thing on gender identity. It’s a trifle didactic, but funny (Brooks keeps trying to guess who’s which gender and getting it wrong because he’s accepting GENDER BASED STEREOTYPES!!! :EEK: ). It could have been dreadful and shrill, but Brooks in this era was ALWAYS funny and his timing is wonderful-he pulls it off perfectly (Thomas “I want to be a fireman when I grow up! What about you?” Brooks “A COCKTAIL WAITRESS! < rimshot >. See? I told you I was a girl.”)
Next is another vaguely catchy tune about how we should learn to accept ourselves as they are. It doesn’t matter if we’re big/fat/short/pretty, as long as we LIKE OURSELVES. It wouldn’t be bad, except it stars grownups (Cicily Tyson? and maybe a Jackson Brother?) dressed and acting like little kids dressing like grownups–and it’s just slightly weird. Think of any show where adults dress up like Raggedy Ann and Andy and you’ve got the flavor of it.
A return to the Cabbage-Patch Muppet sequence–much funnier as it doesn’t have a message. Brooks/Thomas manipulate the parents watching from outside the baby ward.
Another musical number about how mommies and daddies should not be trapped in traditional gender-related job roles. A little desperate (she’s a welder, he’s a baker, he’s a cabbie, she’s a cop in a weird, but vaguely hot outfit) but pleasant enough. Oh, and mommies and daddies are PEOPLE! I don’t recognize either of them, but she’s white and is an ok singer, he’s black and has a great voice…but he sounds exactly like Dick Van Patten from “8 Is Enough” which caused some cognitive dissonance-he may be the “My Name is Michael/I got a nickle” song guy.
Next is a cartoon about a girl who is about a girl who follows traditional gender norms in terms of dress and insists on always going first. (“Ladies first!”). Eventually Blue Meanies (colored orange) capture them and she gets eaten 'cause ladies go first. In a vacuum, this would be no big deal. In the context of the rest of the show, it’s a bit creepy. There’s a subtext (IN CONTEXT!) that’s just a little…disturbing–we just got a number about how mommies are lumberjacks and that’s good, and following it with a “I’m a girly-girl (and, granted, a bitch) so I get eaten by tiger” bit is probably inadvised placement. If they moved the sequence to later in the show, or even swapped it with the next baby bit, I wouldn’t have any objection.
Another Cabbage-Patch Baby bit.
Next bit is a super-ultra-creepy cartoon (done by DePatie-Freling of Pink Panther fame–or a killer knock off). Dudley is falsly blamed for spilling paint and his teacher makes him clean it up. He finally gets done and goes outside and meets his principal. Who’s…um…who makes Paul Lynde in his most flaming routines look like Clint Eastwood meets John Wayne. He’s dressed in a straw boater and in the sort of suit one associates with Bertie Wooster going boating on the Thames. The principal coaxes Dudley to cry and when Dudley finally does, he says “That was VERY good, Dudley.” in this disturbing, creepy tone of voice…And there’s a creepy “And can you do it for me again, little boy?” followup implied that goes unspoken. And then he tells Dudley how GOOD it is for little boys to cry and how Dudley should come with him into the park, behind a bunch of bushes while he (the principal) plays a sad song on a recorder/clarinet thingie…and maybe Dudley can cry for him…again. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the message that “Hey, if you cry, it doesn’t make you a wimp.” but there’s something terribly wrong with this cartoon.
It segues into a song that’s mumbled by Rosie Greer “Izzawri tu kri”–Greer is not so much off key as unconcerned with keys or melody or rhythm. It has a certain camp charm to it that’s entirely unplanned.
Another cartoon “William’s Doll” about a little boy who they’re desperate to portray as perfectly normal DAMMIT! Except that he wants a doll. Everyone mocks him. Until Granny says that William wants a doll so he can learn to be a good father. :rolleyes: Uh-huh. One of my clearest memories as a kid of this is not buying it then either. If the message is “The kid wants a doll-nuthin’ wrong with that”, fine. If it’s “A five year old wants a baby-doll so he can learn non-traditional parenting roles (inasmuch as changing a diaper or burping a kid is non-traditional for a guy to d) via practice on the doll”, not so much. There’s a desperate feeling that the kid’s desire for a doll has to be rationalized or justified. And given the kid’s age, the rationalization just doesn’t work. Weirdly, the main male part is sung by Alan Alda–who has a pleasant voice–certainly better than his normal whiney speaking voice.
Another baby-muppet sequence. This one’s a soft-shoe number about how you should be nice to babies. Good lord man. I can’t object to that message. It’s really pretty fun and it turns into a very odd Busby Berkley number. These baby sequences are fun–in large part due to the fun that Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks are clearly having riffing off each other. It sounds like Brooks is ad-libbing.
Next: A cartoon about a princess who wants to reaffirm her womynhood by not marrying. It’s narrated by Alda (and Thomas) and HER role/character sounds as though it was written by a MAD MAGAZINE’S idea of what a feminist would sound like and Alda is the epitome of the smarmy, sensitive new-age guy from the early '70s. His character is a total wuss. Again the message “You don’t have to marry-and you can be perfectly happy single” is FINE. The execution is just pathetic. And good LORD the animation is bad.
A tragically bad song (illustrated by kiddies) about how the sun is glowy, but the moon only glows when something else shines on it. And garsh! It’s better to be a sun-person (who’s happy in his or her own person-hood) than a moon-person. Sub-fucking-tle. :rolleyes:
Another animated song about how helping is good but don’t be a screw-up or people won’t want you to help. I’m fairly certain Shel Silverstein wrote this one. It feels like his stuff. It’s just weird. The message doesn’t really fit the rest of the piece, but it’s so odd, and so fun (and catchy) that who cares?
An interminable sequence of Marlo Thomas interviewing a bunch of 3 or 4 year olds who have obviously been coached. BOOOR-ING. Thomas “Is it good to have a brother or sister?”/Toddler “Well, Maw-low, I weally feel that it would be bettew to be an onwy child although I wove my bwother. Pewhaps we should considew the vawious milieus in which bwothehhood and sistewhood can be examined vis-a-vis societal nowms”. I exaggerate, just a little (could you tell? 
) It really is a turgidly boring bit though.
A funky live-actipm song by a bunch of way-too happy people about brothers and sisters. The message is that brothers and sisters exist. This is a good thing. And in a more general sense, we’re all each other’s brother and/or sister. This is also a good thing. The people are entirely WAY too happy about this concept though–there’s a feel that the Flav-R-Ade has been spiked with acid. Also, someone clearly saw Godspell right before writing and choreographing this. This song also features some of the more…horrific examples of '70s fashions including BIG bell bottoms.
A cartoon about luck. The art/feel is vaguely Fat Albert-eque. The story is about a kid who finds a penny on New Year’s day and thus gets three wishes. The message is “Friends are good.” I find it hard to object. This is probably the best of the longer cartoons–solid story, not very preachy, the “gender roles are artificial, god-or-goddess damn it!” message lost, just for a moment of “Let’s tell a story for the story’s sake rather than to propagandize”. It’s actually fairly refreshing.
A terrible song about how A) stoned hippies can’t sing on key and B) friends are good and peace is nice. The guy hippie who sings makes me really wish Rosie Greer was back on. The song goes on for about 5 minutes and about 3 minutes into it, I’m finding myself in sympathy with Cartman (from South Park) regarding his stance on smug hippies. To quote Doonesbury, “This guy’s voice could sterilize frogs at 300 paces”
The socko finale feature is the baby-muppets. After bonding, the babies are broken up as their parents take the two kids and go their own way. Depressing until Brooks cracks a joke to lighten the mood. Really–it’s a creepy ending: “I was just getting to know you and now I’ll never see you again! :(” / "Oh well, that’s the way it goes. 
"
The cartoon kids return to reality with a reprise of the theme song as we fade out on a picture of the earth from the moon and a “Sisters And Brothers” clip.
I dunno–some of these are creepy and a lot of them are shrill. Even agreeing with the message that it’s ok to not want to marry, I still wanted the princess to lose the race and end up barefoot and pregnant, scrubbing some slob’s floor, just 'cause she was SO…cliched and annoying (I also wanted Alan Alda’s oh-so-enlightened SNAG* to get beaten up). The bit with the principal encouraging the little boy to cry was just wrong on a lot of levels. To pull the message “Hey, it doesn’t make you a wimp to cry” requires someone who’s NOT a wimp (Rosie Greer, for one) propounding it. And if you get a narrator who doesn’t give you the vibe that he LIKES to see little boys cry, so much the better.
Very weird. I don’t think I’m going to show it to my neice for another year or two.
*SNAG-Sensitive New-Age Guy. See “wimp”
(It sure doesn’t LOOK like Diana Ross though–this was only a few years before The Wiz–and she was HOT in The Wiz)